Friday, December 30, 2016

What a wonderful year 2016 was
for Songs of Eretz!The Poetry
Review logged 68,000 views--that’s over 1,300 per week, shattering last year’s
record of 52,000 views.The site
also reached another milestone, surpassing 200,000 total views!Just over 250 poems were published,
including twenty-four composed by poets whose submissions were unsolicited.Also, seventeen books of poetry were
reviewed--giving the “review” of the Poetry
Review a whole new layer of meaning.

2016 also saw the full
implementation of our Frequent Contributor program with a core/corps of handpicked
up-and-coming poets submitting their best work for publication on a regular
schedule.Songs of Eretz is proud
to have provided a steady platform for these exceptional poets.We plan to continue this successful
program indefinitely.

This year’s Songs of Eretz
Poetry Award Contest--our only fundraising event--was an unqualified triumph,
thanks to the dozens of loyal supporters of our mission.Former Kansas Poet Laureate Caryn
Mirriam Goldberg did an outstanding job as Guest Judge, providing personal
feedback to the winner and all finalists.I personally enjoyed reading and providing individual feedback for the
hundreds of poems that were submitted but did not envy Caryn the task of
choosing the winner--there were so many beautiful poems.Look for the finalist poems to be published
in the first half of 2017 and for the winning poem to be published in January.

This year also saw another paid
publishing opportunity offered by Songs of Eretz--the first annual Editor’s
Choice Award.This award is given
by the Editor to the poet whose poem published in the previous year “moved him
the most.” All poems by poets other than FCs are automatically eligible--there
is no entry fee.The contest
raised enough funds to grant this year’s winner a fifty-dollar prize with an
additional fifty dollars set aside for the prize in the coming year.

Speaking of the coming year,
the contest took in enough to allow Songs of Eretz to begin to offer an
honorarium of five dollars each for thirty unsolicited poems that will be
accepted for publication in 2017. Becoming a self sustaining paying poetry venue has been a primary goal of
Songs of Eretz for a long time--a goal we are proud to have accomplished with
the devoted support of many Friends of Eretz.We have no doubt that this achievement will attract more
poets of quality and refinement to our cause.Equally exciting, we are pleased and honored to announce that
the Guest Judge for the Songs of Eretz Poetry Award Contest in the coming year
will be the current Poet Laureate of Kansas, Eric McHenry.Eric is an associate professor of
English at Washburn University in Topeka whose work as a poet has achieved
national recognition.So, as
spectacular as 2016 was for Songs of Eretz, I have no doubt that 2017 will be
even more magnificent.

Poet’s Notes: The song title and lyrics inspired this poem
but in a different context. "Santa Claus got Stuck in my Chimney"
(recorded by Harlem Diva, the young Ella Fitzgerald on Decca records in
1929). The bulging bag of toys being the cause got me thinking about the
bulging nets of fish of the fishermen-disciples in the gospel. That prompted me
to attempt a comparison between two gift-givers: Santa and the One in the
Scriptures. The poem braided those comparisons. It should make for a subject of
interesting discussion.

As a special holiday gift, perhaps more to me than to my
readers (judge as ye will), beginning today and over the next twelve days I am
going to offer a serialized version of two long poems taken from my unpublished
collection, Tales of Atay the Ape.I originally composed these poems for
my then six-year-old son, Jason, now in his twenties, with the same idea that
A. A. Milne had in mind for his little boy Christopher Robin.

Alas, the same thing that happened to Milne happened to
me, as revealed in Milne’s introduction to Now
We Are Six.Young Jason was
too busy actually living his fantasy adventure life at the time to be
interested in long-winded, anachronistic poetry about him and his plush toy
companions composed by his professorial father.So, these poems, which I think are rather good if I do say
so, have languished away sad and unpublished for the better part of two
decades.

However, now that I am the editor of a successful online
poetry journal, I have the opportunity to share these poems, if not with my young son, then with the world.And so,
without further ado, I bring you the first installment of the Twelve Days of Christmoose.

A
Fall of Snow

It was upon a quiet autumn day

That Winter, the usurper, tried to take

A moon before its proper time, and play

Upon the ground with ice and snowy flake

That a young moose did wonder at the sight

Of winter snow before its season right.

“Whatever shall I do?” he thought aloud.

“For ready am I not for winter yet.”

Such quantities of white from the snow cloud

Were making our young moose a bit upset.

“I must away from all this snow and ice

And ask the wise gorilla for advice.”

So from the maple grove the moose did trot

And through the apple orchard he did go

Until he reached the solitary spot

Where lived the wise gorilla even so.

Then gently with his antlers he did drum

Upon the door of his sagacious chum.

Abruptly our young moose did hear a snorch

That issued from the simian’s abode.

Then through the door and out onto his porch

The Solomonic ape did quite explode.

Then seeing who was there, he gave a smile

And sat upon the floor to rest a while.

“What brings you, Adirondack, my old friend,

On such a day as this—all ice and snow?

I thought I’d nap then wake to find the end

Of this cold winter wind that now doth blow.

My nap, alas!You just have ruined right—

But glad am I to see you, my friend, quite.”

Editor’s
Note:The
story of the moose and ape will continue in tomorrow’s edition of Songs of Eretz Poetry Review.

died in the rebellion so they would not have to behold
this sacrilege.”

For all of the Temple furniture was broken,

the walls and floors were covered with filth,

and the holy altar dripped with the blood of pigs.

Then the Chief Levite Priest comforted Simon saying,

“Simon, what once belonged to the Lord

may be rededicated and belong again.

I and my fellow priests will make it so.”

“I do not see how it can be done,” said Simon,

“but I will leave the task to you my dear friend and
counselor,

for there is nothing here that a Hammer might restore.”

And so the Levite Priests cleansed the Holy Temple

and brought forth the hallowed menorah

and put it back in its rightful place.

In a hidden corner of the inner sanctuary

the priests discovered a flask of consecrated oil

by some miracle undefiled by the enemy--

enough to last for a single night.

But lo, Almighty God waved His Hand

and the oil burned for eight whole days!

Thus did God signify that the Holy Temple

had been redeemed, that the Jewish people were saved,

and that all whom would descend from

these brave Hebrews would one day be born.

Poet's Notes: Simon the Maccabee aka "the Hammer" was the only one of five brothers (including the mighty and better known Judah) who led and survived the Jewish rebellion that liberated Israel from the Hellenist oppressors. Had the Maccabees lost, the Jews surely would have been annihilated at that time, 164 years before the birth of the most famous Jew since Moses. Happy Chanukah my friends!

Poet's Notes:Every
year my father read Dickens' Christmas Carol aloud during Christmas. He read
aloud to us almost every night long past the time when we could read too. A
Christmas Carol was special. Though my own children are not yet old enough for
the story, my brother hand bound a copy he compiled and it sits on my bedside
this time of year, waiting. Since those days on my father's couch, I have seen
several movie versions and two stage versions. None of them compare to Dickens'
language.

Animal Behavior Lowell Jaeger "Guest" Ink on Paper By J. Artemus Gordon She’d sputtered her droppings on the living ro...

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